Tag Archives: Avillion Port Dickson

I lived in Port Dickson (PD) for a couple of years. For many years after my family moved away, PD was a regular day trip destination. The Si Rusa Inn, with its restaurant and bar open on all sides to the sea breeze, outdoor jukebox, and kampung ladies sitting under the casuarina trees, weaving and selling mengkuang hats, bags, and mats, was a favourite place to spend a Sunday.

That was forty years ago. The Si Rusa Inn is now derelict. PD has become crowded with resorts and hotels. The beaches are not what they used to be. I stopped going to PD for beach holidays.

The Avillion Coastal Ride (ACR) has been hosted by PD for a number of years. I made up for missing the previous ACRs by turning this year’s ACR into a three-day cycling event. Kota Kemuning to Morib with the R@SKLs, and then solo to PD on Saturday. The 160km Endurance ACR with friends on Sunday. And a solo ride home on Monday.

You can tell by the way the pre-ride formalities are managed that an event is run by a competent organiser. In this case Pedal Explorer and their technical director, Encik Zulkarnain Shah, seen here keeping an eye on the goody bag distribution.

Information about the ride was clearly posted outside the room where participants were to collect their goody bags.

The distribution of ride packs / goody bags was efficiently managed. I was out of the room, three goody bags in hand, in a matter of minutes.

Those goody bags were heavier than I expected. That 500g pack of organic rice was an unusual goody bag item.

Photograph courtesy of Mohd Farid Abu Bakar

Registration for the ACR 2017 entitled participants to a discounted rate at the host hotels. Either the Avillion Admiral Cove, or the Avillion PD. I had opted for the latter. So I had a 4.5km / 2.8 ride from the goody bag pickup at Avillion Admiral Cove to the Avillion PD. With goody bags swinging from my handlebar.

I had been in my cycling kit for more than eight hours. The first thing I needed after checking in to my water chalet was a shower. I stood fully-clothed under the high-volume shower head, rinsing salt and grime off body and out of kit.

I hadn’t eaten anything since stopping at Morib with the R@SKLs. I had a late lunch in the Crow’s Nest restaurant, with a view of the Straits of Malacca.

Marco, Mark, and Martin drove from KL to PD early on Sunday morning. I met them at the Avillion PD car park, and we rode to the start line at the Avillion Admiral Cove.

Here we are, waiting for the ride to be flagged off.

Photograph courtesy of Mark Lim

There were lots of cycling clubs and teams, resplendent in their matching kits. Including this group of former students from my secondary school.

Photograph courtesy of Avillion Coastal Ride 2017

There were three distances to choose from. The 25km / 15.5mi Fun Ride, the 90km / 56mi Scenic Ride, and the 160km / 99.5mi Endurance Ride.

The Endurance Ride participants set off first. Led out by three riders on postman’s bikes. The national courier, Pos Laju, was the main sponsor of the ACR 2017.

Photograph courtesy of Cycling Malaysia magazine

1,606 participants streamed under the Start / Finish arch. Including two riders on unusual machines.

Photograph courtesy of Avillion Coastal Ride 2017

Photograph courtesy of Cycling Malaysia magazine

The Endurance Ride route took us south past the old Si Rusa Inn, and then eastward. Within ten minutes the four of us had latched on to the rear of a fairly large group. Which included this gentleman on a fat bike.

Photograph courtesy of Avillion Coastal Ride 2017

He, and the others ahead of us, provided a draft which we enjoyed all the way to the first water station at Linggi. Almost everyone in the group stopped there. We rode through that water station, so we became a peloton of four.

Map courtesy of Avillion Coastal Ride 2017

At about the 40km / 25mi mark we crossed the border between the state of Negri Sembilan and the state of Melaka, at Lubok China. We were enjoying the very pleasant roads between the small towns and villages.

Photograph courtesy of Avillion Coastal Ride 2017

There wasn’t much traffic on those roads. Not that traffic would have been a problem. We were accompanied by a capable set of marshalls on motorbikes, who shielded us from any vehicles.

Photograph courtesy of Marco Lai

There were also mechanics on motorbikes and scooters. More than a few participants were very grateful for the roadside assistance they received.

Photograph courtesy of Avillion Coastal Ride 2017

The mobile marshalls were complementd by marshalls positioned at intersections. They stopped traffic so that we could keep rolling. The ever-present marshalls are another hallmark of a well-organised event.

Photograph courtesy of Avillion Coastal Ride 2017

It takes considerable resources to efficiently and effectively manage a cycling event. In the case of the ACR 2017, this included 300 support crew, officials and volunteers, 3 ambulances, 3 broom lorries, 7 support vehicles, 6 police patrol cars and 60 police motorbikes and pilots.

Kudos to Pedal Explorer, Encik Zulkarnain Shah, the police personnel, and the support crew, officials and volunteers for making the ACR 2017 a safe and memorable event for all the participants.

3km / 1.8mi after crossing the state border, we became a group of three. Martin did the Scenic Ride. His route split from ours at the junction of Federal Route 5 and State Route M140.

Map courtesy of Avillion Coastal Ride 2017

We waved goodbye as Martin turned right. By then, Marco and Mark had been ready for breakfast for some time. I had had the benefit of a room service breakfast, albeit at the ungodly hour of 4.40am. (My breakfast was delivered twenty minutes early).

My companions were on the road while I was eating my pancakes, so they were hungry. We stopped at a food stall in Kampung Jeram, about 50km / 31mi into the ride.

Nasi lemak and iced Milo sorted out the hunger pangs.

Photograph courtesy of Marco Lai

Having only recently fed and watered ourselves, we rolled through the next water station at 72km / 45mi. We missed out on the dabbing action there!

Photograph courtesy of Avillion Coastal Ride 2017

Halfway through the ride we were on the AMJ Highway. The clouds had burned off, and the temperature was rising. Our thoughts turned to the ice cold coconut shakes at Klebang Original Coconut Shake. 5km / 3mi away.

All the turns along the route were very clearly marked with red arrows. Even at junctions without a marshall, it was obvious which way to turn. We got to Jalan Klebang Besar / Klebang Kecil and turned right, as indicated by the red arrow.

We started looking for Klebang Original Coconut Shake. 2km / 1.2mi later we were riding out of Klebang Besar, without having seen the coconut shake shop. One look at our route on Strava revealed why. Klebang Original Coconut Shake is 200 meters / 660 feet to the left of the junction where we had turned right. So close!

Map courtesy of Strava and Google Maps

A couple of kilometers later we turned left onto Jalan Pekan Tanjung 2. And found a sundry shop with cold drinks and a tap where we could wash our faces. We spent fifteen minutes there, sitting inside the shop, under a fan, cold drinks in hand.

We had met up with Johan S. a number of times along the route. He would pass us on the downhills, and we would pass him on the uphills and flats.

Photograph courtesy of Avillion Coastal Ride 2017

We spotted him as he rode past the sundry shop. A quick yell, and he was soon resting in the shop with us.

Our next destination was Kuala Seafood at Kuala Sungai Baru, 25km / 15.5mi away. This is the restaurant which was closed, to our great disappointment, when we rode to Melaka about a month ago. I was certain that the restaurant was along our route, so we wouldn’t miss it the way we had missed Klebang Original Coconut Shake..

Kuala Seafood was open! A waitress told us that the restaurant had closed for a month so that the staff could have a long holiday. It had been re-opened for two days. I told her that the next time they plan to close for a month, they need to put an announcement about it in the newspapers.

It was 12.30pm when we got to Kuala Seafood. It was at least 35° C / 95° F. We were shoes-off hot.

Photograph courtesy of Marco Lai

The food looked delicious, as we expected. But we were too hot to eat any of it. All we wanted were ice-cold drinks.

At that point we had about 35km / 22mi left to ride. We were back on familiar roads between PD and Melaka. We had cycled before on these roads at about the same time of day, so we knew it was going to get hotter over the next hour or two. The number of people we saw taking a break in whatever shade they could find bore this out.

Photograph courtesy of Avillion Coastal Ride 2017

The last 12km / 7.5mi of the ride included a 10.5km / 6.5mi stretch of Jalan Pintasan Teluk Kemang. That road is a dual carriageway that serves as an inland shortcut to the Seremban – Port Dickson Highway. It bypasses the narrow, winding two-way road which runs along the coast.

It was probably 37° C / 99° F, if not hotter, on that bypass. There is no shade. And it rolls up and down over its entire length, to the tune of 162 meters / 530 feet of climbing.

Photograph courtesy of Cycling Malaysia magazine

It was too hot to linger. So we upped the pace, helped by a tailwind, to the finish at the Avillion Admiral Cove.

Because we had lingered over food and drinks along the way, we were amongst the last finishers. Well behind all the Fun and Scenic Ride participants, and most of the Endurance riders.

So we didn’t get any of watermelon or iced Milo on offer at the end of the ride. It had all been polished off by the cyclists ahead of us. I’m looking at you Martin!

Photograph courtesy of Cycling Malaysia magazine

Photograph courtesy of Cycling Malaysia magazine

There were plenty of packs of biryani rice, chicken, and cabbage left. It was pretty good too. Some of the better post-ride food I’ve tasted. There was lots of water, and chocolate muffins as well. We didn’t really have to eat our medals..

After we ate and cooled down, we rode back to the Avillion Hotel PD for a shower and a change of clothes. We had one more place to visit.

The weather has not been kind lately to Kuala Lumpur. It has been very hot and dry. The month-long drought has had two effects. One is that water rationing has been imposed. The other is that forest and peat fires have sprung up, driving air quality to unhealthy levels.

It is no wonder Dave Ern posted weather and haze updates in the days leading up to the Iron Horse ride.

Image courtesy of Dave Ern

Image courtesy of Dave Ern

The main concern was the haze. The air quality was in the moderate range on Wednesday. Conditions deteriorated as the weekend approached. By Saturday the API value was in the unhealthy range.

Nevertheless about forty people gathered in the car park at GM Klang for the start of a two-day round trip ride to Port Dickson and back.

Photograph courtesy of Nelson Ng Hong Tuck

The ride would take us out to the coast at Morib. We would then ride south along the coast to Port Dickson.

The early going was not pleasant. This was on the way out of Klang enroute to Banting.

The air quality got worse the closer we got to Morib. Many of us had masks or bandannas over our mouths and noses. I had neither, but made sure that I was breathing through my nose rather than through my mouth.

There was little we could do about our stinging eyes though. Except hope that the air would be clearer and cleaner along the coast.

At Morib we should have been able to see the beach and the sea. We couldn’t.

It was not until we got to Tanjung Sepat, about halfway to Port Dickson, that the haze started to clear. At that point I was in a group of six cyclists that was ahead of the other riders. Traffic lights, flat tires and other stops had slowed the rest down.

The six of us made our first stop at Tanjung Sepat. Soft boiled eggs, buttered toast and kaya, and iced tea for everyone.

The wind had picked up by the time we got rolling again. Not so good that it seemed to be a constant headwind. Very good that it cleared the smoke and haze.

Photograph courtesy of Junie Leow

At Sungai Pelek we took a detour through a housing estate and an oil palm estate to get to the little ferry that crosses the Sungai Sepang.

Photograph courtesy of Ann Daim

We got onto the ferry in the state of Selangor, and disembarked a few minutes later in the state of Negeri Sembilan. This is the Selangor side of the river.

Photograph courtesy of Junie Leow

The first half of the ride was a battle through the smoke and haze. The second half of the ride was a battle though the heat. We stopped for cold drinks and ice cream at Sungai Pelek. We stopped for more cold drinks and ice cream 15 km later on the outskirts of Port Dickson. We had only 10 km further to go, but it was so hot. We had to rehydrate and cool down.

I dove into the freezer cabinet and discovered Nestle Apple Sourz iced lollies. They were so good, and I was so hot, that I had three of them. Those frozen treats, and the air-conditioning in the 7-11, cooled me down enough to face the final 10 km to the Avillion Hotel.

Photograph courtesy of ScoopyScoop.com

Twenty five hot minutes later the six of us rode up to the lobby of the Avillion Port Dickson.

Photograph courtesy of Travel Advisor

Our relief at arriving at our destination was short-lived. There are two Avillions in Port Dickson, and we were at the wrong one.

So we had 5 km more to cover before we got to the Avillion Admiral Cove.

Photograph courtesy of Travel Photographer Asia

The other Flipsiders had made a stop along the way for clay pot chicken rice. They arrived later but not as hungry as I was.

Photograph courtesy of Brian Tan

I was thankful for a cold shower and air-conditioning. My young riding partners were staying at the Best Western. A further 15 km down the road. They hung out for quite a while in the lobby of the Avillion Admiral Cove, waiting for their friends.

Photograph courtesy of Brian Tan

The most adventurous ones in our group camped on the beach.

Photograph courtesy of Kellie Itoe

These true tourers packed up their tents the next morning and rode the 115 m back to Klang.

Photograph courtesy of Ann Daim

The guys I cycled together with did the return trip also. These guys rode an extra 20 km to get to the start at GM Klang. They then had an extra 15 km to the Best Western Resort in Port Dickson. So in all they rode about 315 km.

Photograph courtesy of Brian Tan

I took the easy way back home. As a passenger in my biker chick’s car.

The ride was smokey. The ride was hot. Given the chance I am sure we all would do it again.